Automatic identification of digital content related to a block of text, such as a blog entry

ABSTRACT

A system for identifying digital content related to a portion of a block of text receives, automatically or via input by a user, an indication of one or more words included in the block of text. The system searches a database of digital content based on the one or more words and retrieves from the database one or more digital content items or identifiers of digital content items that are related to the one or more words. The system provides the retrieved digital content items or identifiers to the user, and receives a selection of one or more of the provided items or identifiers from the user. The system associates for display or replay the one or more selected digital content items with the one or more words in the block of text. Other embodiments of the system are also disclosed.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION(S)

This application claims priority to, and incorporates by reference inits entirety, U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/841,902, filed on Sep.1, 2006.

BACKGROUND

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Images have aspecial ability to evoke emotions, attract attention, and convey amessage. As a reflection of this, most modern written communication hasa graphical component, and often this graphical component includesphotographic images. Contemporary commercial web sites, for example,make liberal use of images. As a result, commercial web sites often havecustomary sources for obtaining images, whether these sources areinternal, such as staff photographers, or external, such as imagelicensing services, including Getty Images.

While much of the content available online is provided by commercial websites, many private individuals also create content and share it online.Some people host web sites on which they share their research, opinions,and even information about their personal lives. Other people havepublic web journals to which they periodically add entries. One type ofonline web journal is a “blog,” or web log.

Blogs may contain text only, or they may also include images. If anindividual wants to write a blog entry about Machu Picchu, for example,he may start with text, but may find that including pictures of thisregion will not only better illustrate its amazing beauty, but may alsoattract more readers to his blog. Another individual who wants to blog(i.e., write a blog entry) about a notable political figure may want toinclude a picture so that a reader can see the person who is the subjectof the blog entry. Readers may find that a story included in a blog ismore interesting to read if there are pictures associated with thestory.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a basic and suitable computer that mayemploy aspects of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a simple, yet suitable system inwhich aspects of the invention may operate in a networked computerenvironment.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating a process by which an authoring usermay select images for a block of text in some embodiments.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating a process by which a reading usermay view images associated with a block of text in some embodiments.

FIG. 5 is a more detailed flow chart of a process by which an authoringuser may select images for a block of text in some embodiments.

FIG. 6 is a more detailed flow chart of a process by which a readinguser may view images associated with a block of text in someembodiments.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a suitable system for identifyingimages relevant to a block of text.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating a suitable system for displayingto a reader images associated with text.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating a variety of embodiments in whichthe system may operate.

FIG. 10 is a display diagram illustrating how the system indicates to anauthoring user the words or phrases for which relevant images areavailable in some embodiments.

FIG. 11 is a display diagram illustrating how the system allows anauthoring user to select from among relevant images identified anddisplayed by the system in some embodiments.

FIG. 12 is a display diagram illustrating how the system displays to anauthoring user the set of images selected by the user to be associatedwith a block of text in some embodiments.

FIG. 13 is a display diagram illustrating how the system displays to areading user an image associated with a word or phrase in someembodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

While a commercial web site is likely to be maintained by someone who isaware of the types of images that are available and is likely to havesources for obtaining images, a private individual or a small businessmay not find it feasible to search for images to include on a web site.Additionally, it can be costly and time-consuming to negotiate a licenseto use an image. Even if it were feasible to find and license an image,an individual or small business may not think it is likely that arelevant image, such as one that corresponds to a specific word orphrase, is even available. It would be time-consuming to manually searcha web site phrase-by-phrase to determine which words or phrases may beassociated with relevant images. These and other problems exist.

A system for identifying digital content related to a portion of a blockof text is disclosed. The system receives, automatically or via input bya user, an indication of one or more words included in the block of textfor which related digital content is to be identified. The systemsearches a database of digital content based on the one or more wordsand retrieves from the database one or more digital content items oridentifiers of digital content items that are related to the one or morewords. The system provides the retrieved digital content items oridentifiers to the user, and receives a selection of one or more of theprovided digital content items from the user. The system associates fordisplay or replay the one or more selected digital content items withthe one or more words in the block of text. Other embodiments of thesystem are also disclosed.

The system disclosed herein has many benefits, including informing website authors of available images relevant to web site text and making iteasier for authors to license and associate those images with the text.The system provides these and other advantages.

A brief example of how the system may be used will guide the reader inunderstanding the description and figures that follow. Imagine a userMay Bloghappy who writes a blog about her trips to various parts of theworld. She thinks that her blog entries are more interesting when theyinclude attractive images. As a result, May subscribes to a bloggingservice that gives its subscribers access to thousands of qualityimages.

Since May is interested in travel, she subscribes to a service thatoffers “international” images. If she has other interests, she mightalso subscribe to a “sports” or “news” image database. However, evenwithin the international images database, there are too many images forMay to sort through by herself. Instead, while writing her newest blogentry, she can request that the blog service choose a few relevantimages for her based on the content of her blog entry and the relevancy,recency, or popularity of the images. This saves her the trouble oftrying to find a few relevant images among the many thousands ormillions of images that are available in the international imagesdatabase.

The process starts when May, while writing her blog entry, requests thatthe blog service search for a few images related to her blog entry. Theblog service processes the text of May's blog entry and makes a list ofwords and/or phrases that will be used to look for images. The systemuses this list of words and/or phrases to search a catalog of images tofind a few images that are related to each word or phrase on the list.The system displays the relevant images, and May can choose one or moreof these images to associate with the words or phrases in her blogentry. A reader of May's blog can read her text and see the images shehas chosen.

In some embodiments, if any of the words or phrases identified by thesystem have multiple meanings, the system may display a visualindication to allow May to determine which meaning is the one sheintended. For example, if she used the word “Bush” at the start of asentence in her blog, the system might provide a visual indication thatone set of images is related to “President Bush” and another set ofimages is related to shrubbery. When May selects the visual indicationfor the political figure, she indicates to the facility that she wantsto choose a picture of the President. As a result of this selection, shemay then be presented with a group of images from which to choose.

While the following description contains specific details to provide anenabling understanding of a few sample embodiments of the system, oneskilled in the art will understand that the invention may be practicedin many additional or alternative embodiments that may differ in detailsfrom the sample embodiments described. Additionally, some well-knownstructures or functions may not be shown or described in detail, so asto avoid unnecessarily obscuring the relevant description of the variousembodiments.

The terminology used in this Detailed Description is intended to beinterpreted in its broadest reasonable manner, even though it is used inconjunction with a detailed description of certain specific embodimentsof the invention. Certain terms may even be emphasized below; however,any terminology intended to be interpreted in a restricted manner willbe overtly and specifically defined as such in this Detailed Descriptionsection.

In the drawings, the same reference numbers and acronyms identifyelements or acts with the same or similar functionality for ease ofunderstanding and convenience. To easily identify the discussion of anyparticular element or act, the most significant digit or digits in areference number refer to the Figure number in which that element isfirst introduced (e.g., element 504 is first introduced and discussedwith respect to FIG. 5).

FIG. 1 and the following discussion provide a brief, general descriptionof a suitable computing environment in which aspects of the inventioncan be implemented. Although not required, aspects and embodiments ofthe invention will be described in the general context ofcomputer-executable instructions, such as routines executed by ageneral-purpose computer, e.g., a server or personal computer. Thoseskilled in the relevant art will appreciate that the invention can bepracticed with other computer system configurations, including Internetappliances, hand-held devices, wearable computers, cellular or mobilephones, multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based or programmableconsumer electronics, set-top boxes, network PCs, mini-computers,mainframe computers, and the like. The invention can be embodied in aspecial purpose computer or data processor that is specificallyprogrammed, configured or constructed to perform one or more of thecomputer-executable instructions explained in detail below. Indeed, theterm “computer,” as used generally herein, refers to any of the abovedevices, as well as any data processor.

The invention can also be practiced in distributed computingenvironments, where tasks or modules are performed by remote processingdevices, which are linked through a communications network, such as aLocal Area Network (“LAN”), Wide Area Network (“WAN”), or the Internet.In a distributed computing environment, program modules or sub-routinesmay be located in both local and remote memory storage devices. Aspectsof the invention described below may be stored or distributed oncomputer-readable media, including magnetic and optically readable andremovable computer discs, stored as firmware in chips (e.g., EEPROMchips), as well as distributed electronically over the Internet or overother networks (including wireless networks). Those skilled in therelevant art will recognize that portions of the invention may reside ona server computer, while corresponding portions may reside on a clientcomputer. Data structures and transmission of data particular to aspectsof the invention are also encompassed within the scope of the invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, one embodiment of the invention employs a computer100, such as a personal computer or workstation, having one or moreprocessors 101 coupled to one or more user input devices 102 and datastorage devices 104. The computer is also coupled to at least one outputdevice such as a display device 106 and one or more optional additionaloutput devices 108 (e.g., printer, plotter, speakers, tactile orolfactory output devices, etc.). The computer may be coupled to externalcomputers, such as via an optional network connection 110, a wirelesstransceiver 112, or both.

The input devices 102 may include a keyboard and/or a pointing devicesuch as a mouse. Other input devices are possible such as a microphone,joystick, pen, game pad, scanner, digital camera, video camera, and thelike. The data storage devices 104 may include any type ofcomputer-readable media that can store data accessible by the computer100, such as magnetic hard and floppy disk drives, optical disk drives,magnetic cassettes, tape drives, flash memory cards, digital video disks(DVDs), CD-ROMs, Bernoulli cartridges, RAMs, ROMs, smart cards, etc.Indeed, any physical medium for storing or transmittingcomputer-readable instructions and data may be employed, including aconnection port to or node on a network such as a local area network(LAN), wide area network (WAN) or the Internet (not shown in FIG. 1).

Aspects of the invention may be practiced in a variety of othercomputing environments. For example, referring to FIG. 2, a distributedcomputing environment with a web interface that includes one or moreuser computers 202 in a system 200 us shown; each computer 202 includesa browser program module 204 that permits the computer to access andexchange data with the Internet 206, including web sites within theWorld Wide Web portion of the Internet. The user computers may besubstantially similar to the computer described above with respect toFIG. 1. User computers may include other program modules such as anoperating system, one or more application programs (e.g., wordprocessing or spread sheet applications), and the like. The computersmay be general-purpose devices that can be programmed to run varioustypes of applications, or they may be single-purpose devices optimizedor limited to a particular function or class of functions. Moreimportantly, while shown with web browsers, any application program forproviding a graphical user interface to users may be employed, asdescribed in detail below; the use of a web browser and web interfaceare only used as a familiar example here.

At least one server computer 208, coupled to the Internet or World WideWeb (“Web”) 206, performs many or all of the functions for receiving,routing, and storing of electronic messages, such as web pages, audiosignals, and electronic images. While the Internet is shown, a privatenetwork, such as an intranet, may indeed be preferred in someapplications. The network may have a client-server architecture, inwhich a computer is dedicated to serving other client computers, or itmay have another architecture such as a peer-to-peer network, in whichone or more computers serve simultaneously as servers and clients. Adatabase 210 or databases, coupled to the server computer(s), storesmuch of the content and web pages exchanged between the user computers.The server computer(s), including the database(s), may employ securitymeasures to inhibit malicious attacks on the system, and preserve theintegrity of the messages and data stored therein (e.g., firewallsystems, secure socket layers (SSL), password protection schemes,encryption, and the like).

The server computer 208 may include a server engine 212, a web pagemanagement component 214, a content management component 216, and adatabase management component 218. The server engine performs basicprocessing and operating system level tasks. The web page managementcomponent handles creation and display or routing of web pages. Usersmay access the server computer by means of a URL associated therewith.The content management component handles most of the functions in theembodiments described herein. The database management component includesstorage and retrieval tasks with respect to the database, queries to thedatabase, and storage of data such as video, graphics and audio signals.

While the applicant's technology may be practiced using a number ofdifferent possible embodiments, only a few explanatory embodiments willbe discussed here.

In some embodiments, an authoring user enters a block of text, viewsindications of words or phrases in the block of text for which there arerelevant images, makes selections of images that are to be associatedwith the indicated text, and views the text block along with theassociated images.

In some embodiments, the system segments the block of text submitted bythe authoring user into usable words or groups of words (i.e.,“segments”), filters the identified segments to select those that aremost likely to have relevant images, and sends to the authoring userinformation about images related to the words or phrases correspondingto the filtered segments.

In some embodiments, after identifying segments for which there may berelevant images, the system searches a database for each of the segmentsto identify images relevant to that segment. The system may thenassociate one or more images from the search results with theappropriate word or phrase in the blog entry. In some embodiments, thesystem returns the blog entry to the authoring user along with markupinformation that identifies any relevant images identified by thesystem. In some embodiments, the system provides a visual indication onthe words or phrases for which relevant images have been identified. Theimages may be ranked to assist users in selecting the best images;images may, for example, be ranked by their popularity. The authoringuser can then browse the supplied images and select one or more imagesto associate with a corresponding word or phrase. In some embodiments,when the user finalizes the blog entry, the system sends the blog entryalong with the associated image choices to a blogging service forpublication.

Readers of a blog entry will be able to read the author's text as usual.In addition, readers will also be able to view images associated withthe text. In some embodiments, the system displays to a reader a visualindication, such as highlighted text, that identifies words and phrasesfor which images have been associated. In some embodiments, when a wordor phrase is selected by a reader (e.g., by clicking, mouse hover, orother user action) the system displays the image or images that wereearlier selected by the author. Alternatively or additionally, thesystem may display the blog so that the text flows around the associatedimages. In such embodiments, the reader is not required to take anyadditional action to view the images.

In some embodiments, the system includes both a client and a server.These embodiments might comprise, for example, a web browser and a webserver, a custom client application and an online service, or acombination of these and other examples. Other embodiments of the systemmay include only a server, such as an online service that is provided toother web sites. Still other embodiments of the system may include onlya client, such as an application that is downloadable or available on acomputer readable medium such as a CD-ROM or a DVD.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating a process by which an authoring usermay select images for a block of text in some embodiments. At a block302, an authoring user creates a blog entry and submits the entry to anonline blog service. In some embodiments, a client application isdesigned to allow a user enter, edit, and format a block of text beforesubmitting it to the system. In some embodiments, the client applicationmay be a web browser, while in other embodiments it may be another typeof application. In some embodiments, the client application sends thetext of the blog entry to an online service that identifies images thatare related to words or phrases in the blog entry.

After the service has identified relevant images, it provides theauthoring user with information about those images. In some embodiments,the client application displays to the authoring user the text of theblog entry and a visual indication of the, words and phrases for whichrelevant images may be selected. FIG. 10 is an example of a userinterface used by the system to display to an authoring user visualindications of the words or phrases for which relevant images areavailable. In this example, the authoring user has submitted text aboutLloyd Bentsen, which is displayed by the system together withhighlighting that indicates the words and phrases with which images maybe associated. In this example, the words and phrases identified ascorresponding to available images include “Lloyd Bentsen,” “PresidentClinton,” “Dan Quayle,” “John Kennedy,” “Jack Kennedy,” “War,” and“party.”

Returning to FIG. 3, at a block 303 the authoring user selects ahighlighted word or phrase with which she would like to associate animage. The user may select a word or phrase by, for example, clicking ona word or phrase. In response to the authoring user's selection, thesystem displays one or more images relevant to the selected word orphrase. FIG. 11 is an example of a user interface used by the system todisplay one or more images to the authoring user. In this example, thesystem displays images related to the selected phrase “Lloyd Bentsen.”

The process illustrated in FIG. 3 may be repeated for several wordsand/or phrases, such that one or more images will be associated witheach word or phrase selected by the authoring user. FIG. 12 is anexample of a user interface used by the system to display to theauthoring user the set of images selected by the user; each image isassociated with a word or phrase selected by the user.

FIG. 5 is a more detailed flow chart of a process by which an authoringuser may select images for a block of text in some embodiments. FIG. 5provides more detail of the process described in FIG. 3. The processbegins at either a block 501, when an authoring user submits a textblock for processing, or at a block 502, when an authoring user manuallyselects a word, phrase, or other portion of the text block forprocessing.

While users will often make a request of the system with an entire blockof text, as indicated by block 501, users may also manually identify aword or phrase within a block of text for which the system is to searchfor relevant images, as indicated by block 502. This may be useful, forexample, if the segmenting process of the online service does notidentify a phrase the user would like to associate with an image. Forexample, if the segmenting functionality identified “white” and “house”as separate segments, the user might manually request that the servicesearch for images related to the segment “White House.”

At a block 503 the authoring user requests that a blog service processthe submitted text. The authoring user may make such request by means ofa client application, such as a web browser. At a block 504 the blogservice receives and processes the request. To process the request, at ablock 505 the blog service makes a request to markup service whichreceives the text. Upon receiving the text, at a block 506 the markupservice calls a segmentation service to segment the received text intokeywords. Optionally, at a block 507 the markup service may specify thatthe segmentation service should utilize a mapping service. If utilized,the mapping service receives the segments from the segmentation service,maps the segments to keyword categories, and returns the keywordcategories to segmentation service. Segments and keyword categories arereturned to markup service. If a mapping service is not utilized, thesegmentation service returns the segments to the markup service withoutkeyword categories.

After receiving the segments, at a block 508 the markup service calls afiltering service to filter the keywords. The markup service sends thefiltering service the segmented text and, if applicable, the keywordcategories. The filtering service identifies segments for which relatedimages are most likely to be available. This process may involve the useof technologies such as those disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser.No. 11/449,380, filed Jun. 7, 2006, which is herein incorporated byreference in its entirety. Those segments for which related images aremost likely to be available are returned as filtered keywords to markupservice.

At a block 509, after receiving the filtered keywords, the markupservice calls an asset service to search for images that are related tothe keywords or keyword categories. The asset service searches forimages and returns the identified images to the markup service. Afterreceiving the images from the asset service, the markup service may doadditional processing; for example, it may put the information about theidentified images into a format that can be read by the blog service.

At a block 510 the blog service receives information about theidentified images from the markup service and does further processing sothat the appropriate words and phrases are indicated as havingassociated images. In some embodiments, the blog service stores theauthoring user's text together with the image markup, while in otherembodiments, the blog service stores the text separately from the imagemarkup.

At a block 511 the system displays to the authoring user the words andphrases that have images available for selection. As indicated above,FIG. 10 is an example of a user interface used by the system to displayto an authoring user visual indications of the words or phrases forwhich relevant images are available. Upon selecting one of the indicatedwords or phrases, at a block 512 the authoring user may choose one ormore images to associate with the selected word or phrase. At a block513 the user submits his image choices to the blog service. In someembodiments, a client application may make a request to the onlineservice for each image the user associates with a word or phrase. Inother embodiments, the client application may batch several such imageselections into a single request.

At a block 514, when the blog service receives the authoring user'sselection of an image for a word or phrase, the blog service updates theblog entry. At a block 515 the blog service displays to the authoringuser the blog entry with the associated images.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a suitable system for identifyingimages relevant to a block of text. Authoring user 701 uses a webbrowser 702 to interact with a hosted blogging service 703. Web browser702 may be any of a variety of publicly available web browsers includingInternet Explorer by Microsoft, Opera by Opera Software, or Firefox fromMozilla Corporation. The authoring user 701 creates a blog entry via theblogging service 703, which has licensed the system disclosed herein.The blogging service then sends the text of the blog entry to a markupservice 704, which is an online service portion of the system. Themarkup service 704, after doing some initial processing of the text,sends the text to a segmentation service 705, which removes noise wordsand breaks the text into segments, which comprise phrases or individualwords.

Optionally, the markup service 704 may request the segmentation service705 to identify keyword category IDs for each of the identifiedsegments. In some embodiments, the segmentation service 705 may use amapping service 706 to map segments to keyword categories. In otherembodiments, another component of the markup service 704, other than thesegmentation service, simply returns a list of keyword category IDs fora block of text.

Upon receiving the segments and, if applicable, the keyword category IDsfrom the segmentation service 705, the markup service 704 may doadditional processing. Upon completion of any additional processing, themarkup service makes a request to a filtering service 707. The requestcontains, among other things, the segments returned by the segmentationservice. The filtering service 707 removes segments that are less likelyto result in finding images. The filtering service 707 may reduce theload on an asset service 708 and allow isolation of this functionality.When the markup service 704 receives the filtered keywords from thefiltering service 707, it may do additional processing. The markupservice 704 sends to the asset service 708 the filtered keywords,keyword category IDs, and/or and other information.

The asset service 708 identifies appropriate images for the filteredkeywords and/or keyword category IDs and returns information about theseimages to the markup service 704. After some additional processing, themarkup service 704 returns this information to the hosted blog service703 in a format that can be used by the service. The blog service 703will display to the authoring user 701 visual indications on words andphrases that have associated images. As indicated above, FIG. 10 is anexample of a user interface used by the system to display to anauthoring user visual indications of the words or phrases for whichrelevant images are available.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating a process by which a reading usermay view images associated with a block of text in some embodiments. Asused generally herein, a reading user may be the same user as anauthoring user, or the reading user may be a different user than theauthoring user.

At a block 402 a reading user requests a blog entry to read. In someembodiments, the system displays the blog entry to the reading useralong with a visual indication of words or phrases for which there areassociated images. At a block 403 the reading user requests to view animage associated with a word or phrase. The reader may make her requestin a number of different ways, such as by clicking on, bringing a mousecursor to hover over, or taking another user action in association witha highlighted word or phrase. As a result of the reader's request, at ablock 404 the client application requests the image from the onlineservice and displays the image to the reader. FIG. 13 is an example of auser interface used by the system to display an image to a reading user.In this example, the reader has hovered over the phrase “Lloyd Bentsen.”This phrase is highlighted to indicate that there is an image associatedwith the phrase. As a result of the user's request (e.g., hoverindication), an image is displayed using techniques known to thoseskilled in the art.

FIG. 6 is a more detailed flow chart of a process by which a readinguser may view images associated with a block of text in someembodiments. FIG. 6 provides more detail of the process illustrated inFIG. 4.

At a block 601 a reading user requests a blog entry to read. At a block602 the blog service displays the blog entry containing image markup,which may include visual indications on words and phrases to inform theuser there is at least one image associated with the corresponding wordor phrase. At a block 603 the reading user views the words or phrasesthat are highlighted to indicate that there are one or more associatedimages. At a block 604 the user indicates a request via a clientapplication, such as a web browser, to a delivery service for theassociated images.

At a block 605 the delivery service receives the image request, and at ablock 606 the delivery service determines whether the URL of the imagerequest is valid. In addition, the delivery service may perform otherprocessing. The delivery service calls an image service to displayimages to the reading user. If the URL is valid, at a block 607 theimage service displays the image to the reading user. If the URL is notvalid, at a block 608 the image service displays to the reading user anindication that the URL is not valid. If embedded URLs (i.e., uniformresource locators) are used to associate images with text, these URLsmay optionally include encrypted text to prevent readers fromreverse-engineering of URLs, for example, to obtain access to imagesthey have not licensed.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating a suitable system for displayingimages associated with text to a reading user. As described in referenceto FIG. 6, a reading user 800 makes a request for a blog entry through aclient application, such as a web browser 801, to a blog service 802.Upon reading the requested blog entry, the user 800 may request to seean image associated with a word or phrase. In some embodiments, thisrequest goes to a licensing service 803 which determines whether a validlicense has been obtained for this viewing of the image. The licensingservice 803 may verify the existence of a valid license via a variety ofmechanisms. If there is a valid license, an image service 804 displaysthe image to the reader. If there is not a valid license, the imageservice 804 displays to the reader an indication that the image couldnot be supplied. In some embodiments, the image service may display theindication as an image of an appropriate size containing text describingthe error.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating a variety of embodiments in whichthe system may operate. This diagram illustrates just a small subset ofsystem embodiments, and it is not intended to be exhaustive orcomprehensive. Given the foregoing discussion, many of the embodimentsillustrated in FIG. 9 will be readily understood by one skilled in theart. Some items worthy of note, however, are discussed in more detail.

User 900 may be an authoring user, a reading user, or both.

Block 912 is a blog service that works in combination with a specializedclient application 901. The client application 901 may be provided bythe blog service or by another entity.

Block 921 is a specialized client application that uses one or moreonline services 922. For the purposes of this application, an onlineservice is a more general term than a web service, such as thatrepresented by block 932. An online service may support SOAP, CORBA,and/or DCOM requests, and/or requests transmitted via another networkprotocol. Client application 921 may communicate with an onlinecomponent of the system through one or more online services 922.

Block 932 is web service that responds to HTTP requests. Browser 702, asdescribed above, is a web browser.

Online service 922 and web service 932 may be combined as a singleservice, or may be alternated through multiple services (for example,client 921 may call a web service 932 that calls an online service 922that calls another online service 922 that calls an online service ofthe facility, such as markup service 704). One or more online services922 and/or web services 932 may thus be combined in a single embodiment.

Block 941 represents a specialized client application written by anentity with permission to make direct calls to an online service of thefacility. As described further below, greater permission and broaderaccess to system functionality may be given to specialized clientapplications written by specifically authorized parties.

Block 952 represents a web service provided by an entity with permissionto make direct calls to an online service of the facility. This webservice may be provided by the applicant or a licensee, and may havebroader access to functionality of the system than that given to partiesthat have not been authorized to use the private markup interface.

Offering an interface to be called by custom client software allows apotentially richer set of functionality to be provided to users. Customclient applications may, for example, be allowed to access functionalityof the online service more directly or more flexibly, do additionalprocessing of the information returned from the online service, ordetermine on their own whether and how to preset the returnedinformation to a user. For example, if a licensee desires to write acustom client application that makes requests of the system and doesadditional processing on the returned information, the licensee'sapplication may be permitted broader permissions or richer access to thefacility than is usually available.

In some embodiments, the system may be practiced as an online service(i.e., “primary service provider”) offered for use by a variety ofclients, some of which may themselves be online services (i.e.,“intermediary service providers”). Intermediary service providers mayhandle functions similar to those handled by client applications, asdescribed above, and/or they may provide other unique systemfunctionality. For example, an intermediary service provider may combinea response from a primary service provider with information returnedfrom other online services into a single response to the requester.

In some embodiments, the facility may be practiced in a client onlyenvironment, such as for users who do not have network access or preferto work solely on their own computers.

While the explanatory embodiments are described in reference to a blogentry, the system disclosed herein can be used in a variety of othercontexts such as a private web site, a commercial web site, email, webmail, a person-to-person chat application, and/or other authoringapplications that include text that could be marked up or annotated toindicate an image association. For example, additional use contextsmight be a social networking site such as MySpace, Orkut or Friendster.The disclosed technology could also be used in the context of an onlinepublishing system (such as newspaper), an online news web site, or anonline magazine. In addition, the disclosed technology may be used inthe context of a publicly editable web site (also known as a “wiki”).

In general, the Detailed Description of embodiments of the invention isnot intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to any of theprecise forms disclosed above. While specific embodiments of, andexamples for, the invention are described above for illustrativepurposes, various equivalent modifications are possible within the scopeof the invention, as those skilled in the relevant art will recognize.For example, while processes or blocks are presented in a given order,alternative embodiments may perform routines having blocks, or employsystems having blocks, in a different order, and some processes orblocks may be deleted, moved, added, subdivided, combined, and/ormodified. Each of these processes or blocks may be implemented in avariety of different ways. Also, while processes or blocks are at timesshown as being performed in series, these processes or blocks mayinstead be performed in parallel, or may be performed at differenttimes.

Aspects of the invention may be stored or distributed oncomputer-readable media, including magnetically or optically readablecomputer discs, hard-wired or preprogrammed chips (e.g., EEPROMsemiconductor chips), nanotechnology memory, biological memory, or otherdata storage media. Indeed, computer implemented instructions, datastructures, screen displays, and other data under aspects of theinvention may be distributed over the Internet or over other networks(including wireless networks), on a propagated signal on a propagationmedium (e.g., an electromagnetic wave(s), a sound wave, etc.) over aperiod of time, or they may be provided on any analog or digital network(packet switched, circuit switched, or other scheme). Those skilled inthe relevant art will recognize that portions of the invention reside ona server computer, while corresponding portions reside on a clientcomputer such as a mobile or portable device, and thus, while certainhardware platforms are described herein, aspects of the invention areequally applicable to nodes on a network.

The teachings of the invention provided herein can be applied to othersystems, not necessarily the system described herein. The elements andacts of the various embodiments described herein can be combined toprovide further embodiments.

Any patents, applications, and other references, including any that maybe listed in accompanying filing papers, are incorporated herein byreference, including commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No.11/449,380, filed Jun. 7, 2006, titled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FORCLASSIFYING MEDIA CONTENT.”

Aspects of the invention can be modified, if necessary, to employ thesystems, functions, and concepts of the various references describedabove to provide yet further embodiments of the invention.

These and other changes can be made to the invention in light of theabove Detailed Description. While the above description details certainembodiments of the invention and describes the best mode contemplated,no matter how detailed the above appears in text, the invention can bepracticed in many ways. Details of the invention may vary considerablyin its implementation details, while still being encompassed by theinvention disclosed herein. As noted above, particular terminology usedwhen describing certain features or aspects of the invention should notbe taken to imply that the terminology is being redefined herein to berestricted to any specific characteristics, features, or aspects of theinvention with which that terminology is associated. In general, theterms used in the following claims should not be construed to limit theinvention to the specific embodiments disclosed in the specification,unless the above Detailed Description section explicitly defines suchterms.

A portion of this disclosure contains material to which a claim forcopyright is made. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimilereproduction by anyone of the patent document or patent disclosure(including the Figures) as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Officepatent file or records, but the copyright owner reserves all othercopyright rights whatsoever.

While certain aspects of the invention are presented below in certainclaim forms, the inventors contemplate the various aspects of theinvention in any number of claim forms. For example, while only oneaspect of the invention is recited as a means-plus-function claim under35 U.S.C. §112, sixth paragraph, other aspects may likewise be embodiedas a means-plus-function claim, or in other forms, such as beingembodied in a computer-readable medium. (Any claims intended to betreated under 35 U.S.C. §112, ¶6 will begin with the words “means for.”)Accordingly, the inventors reserve the right to add additional claimsafter filing the application to pursue such additional claim forms forother aspects of the invention.

1. A method of identifying digital content related to a portion of ablock of text, the method comprising: receiving, automatically or viainput by a user, an indication of one or more words included in theblock of text for which related digital content is to be identified;searching a database of digital content based on the one or more wordsfor which the indication is received; retrieving from the database oneor more digital content items or identifiers associated with the one ormore digital content items, wherein the digital content items arerelated to the one or more words for which the indication is received;providing the retrieved digital content items or identifiers to theuser; receiving a selection of one or more of the provided digitalcontent items or identifiers from the user; and associating for displayor replay the one or more selected digital content items or the one ormore digital content items associated with the one or more selectedidentifiers with the one or more words in the block of text.
 2. Themethod of claim 1 wherein the block of text comprises a web log.
 3. Themethod of claim 1 wherein the digital content comprises digital images.4. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the indication of one or morewords included in the block of text comprises: providing to the user avisual indication of one or more words in the block of text for whichrelated digital content is available; and receiving from the user aselection of one or more of the words for which the visual indication isprovided.
 5. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more words forwhich the indication is received have multiple meanings, and wherein themethod further comprises: providing to the user a visual indication ofone or more of the multiple meanings; receiving from the user aselection of one of the provided meanings.
 6. The method of claim 1,further comprising: dividing the block of text into segments of one ormore words; selecting the segments for which digital content is mostlikely to be available; and searching the database of digital contentbased on the selected segments.
 7. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising mapping the one or more words for which the indication isreceived to one or more keyword categories.
 8. The method of claim 1wherein providing the retrieved digital content items or identifiers tothe user comprises: ranking the digital content items, wherein itemsthat are likely to be more relevant to the user are ranked higher anditems that are less likely to be relevant to the user are ranked lower;and presenting to the user the digital content items, wherein the itemsthat are ranked higher are presented before the items that are rankedlower.
 9. The method of claim 1, further comprising annotating the blockof text, wherein annotating comprises marking each of the one or morewords in the block of text with a denotation as to which of the one ormore digital content items are associated with the one or more words.10. A computer-readable medium encoded with processing instructions forimplementing a method, performed by a computer, for selecting digitalcontent related to a portion of a block of text, the method comprising:submitting the block of text to a computer-implemented service foridentifying digital content; receiving from the computer-implementedservice a visual indication of one or more words in the block of textfor which related digital content is available; selecting one or more ofthe words for which the visual indication is received; for each of theone or more selected words, receiving from the computer-implementedservice one or more digital content items or identifiers associated withthe one or more digital content items, wherein the digital content itemsare related to the one or more selected words; and selecting one or moreof the received digital content items to be associated with the one ormore selected words.
 11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10wherein the block of text comprises a web log.
 12. The computer-readablemedium of claim 10 wherein the digital content comprises digital images.13. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the method furthercomprises receiving from the service an annotated block of text, whereinthe annotated block of text comprises the submitted block of text andannotations associating the one or more selected words with the one ormore selected digital content items.
 14. The computer-readable medium ofclaim 10 wherein receiving the one or more digital content items oridentifiers comprises receiving a ranked list, wherein the digitalcontent items that are likely to be more relevant to the user arepresented before items that are less likely to be relevant to the user.15. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein submitting theblock of text comprises submitting one or more specified words in theblock of text, wherein the one or more specified words are selected by auser.
 16. A system for selecting digital content related to a portion ofa block of text, the system comprising: means for receiving,automatically or via input by a user, an indication of one or more wordsincluded in the block of text for which related digital content is to beidentified; means for searching a database of digital content based onthe one or more words for which the indication is received, wherein themeans for searching is coupled to the means for receiving; means forretrieving from the database one or more digital content items oridentifiers associated with the one or more digital content items,wherein the digital content items are related to the one or more wordsfor which the indication is received, wherein the means for retrievingis coupled to the means for searching; means for providing the retrieveddigital content items or identifiers to the user, wherein the means forproviding is coupled to the means for retrieving; means for receiving aselection of one or more of the provided digital content items oridentifiers from the user, wherein the means for receiving is coupled tothe means for providing; and means for associating for display or replaythe one or more selected digital content items or the one or moredigital content items associated with the one or more selectedidentifiers with the one or more words in the block of text, wherein themeans for associating is coupled to the means for receiving.
 17. Thesystem of claim 16 wherein the block of text comprises a web log. 18.The system of claim 16 wherein the digital content comprises digitalimages.
 19. The system of claim 16 wherein the means for receiving theindication of one or more words included in the block of text comprises:means for providing to the user a visual indication of one or more wordsin the block of text for which related digital content is available; andmeans for receiving from the user a selection of one or more of thewords for which the visual indication is provided, wherein the means forreceiving is coupled to the means for providing.
 20. The system of claim16, further comprising means for annotating the block of text, whereinannotating comprises marking each of the one or more words in the blockof text with a denotation as to which of the one or more digital contentitems are associated with the one or more words, and wherein the meansfor annotating is coupled to the means for associating.